


Earth Stained Red

by Beech27



Series: Republic City Blues [2]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3908017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beech27/pseuds/Beech27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All earth is a canvas, waiting to be given color, shape, function. Infinite roads, paths, leading to infinite ends. But Kuvira only wants one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earth Stained Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iviscrit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iviscrit/gifts).



> Something of a Republic City Blues epilogue for Kuvira. Will make zero sense if you haven't read that.

I died yesterday. Or perhaps last week. I can’t say for sure, and so I won’t say at all.

Almost did this, but she’s not almost anymore. She’s Korra now. And something more. Korra did this to me. I can’t say how. Or I can, rather, but the words don’t make sense. I see them come from my lips, hover in front of my eyes-

My eye.

Singular. The plural is lost, engulfed forever in absence and past tense. Korra again. She did it and I don’t know how. Maybe she didn’t know either. Maybe she still doesn’t.

There was panic on her face. In her eyes. Inside every pore and deep down in her soul, there was fear. It poured out of her and swept me away. Somehow.

Nothing almost about her. Not now.

I’m not angry. I’m not anything. The guards, they still call me Kuvira. But that woman died. Died of a heart that failed, veins that burst.

I’m the husk of her remains, animated by some purpose I don’t yet know. Or maybe there is no purpose. Maybe there’s nothing but absence left. I’m nothing, no one. I’m nowhere, with nothing to do.

She deserves worse than this, Korra. And Asami too. The traitor. The murderer. Blue past and present, staining my life red. Tried to kill me once, but I wouldn’t die. No, no. Not so easily.

He was there. He had always been. A friend with an ever present shoulder. He was the first one I told. About my childhood. Before Asami, who was not then Asami. I told him about my parents. How they sold me. How his mother purchased me. How it was no charity.

The veins in his neck swelled as I spoke, but I calmed him. There was nothing for it. It was past. Vanished over a horizon I would never again face.

Still, in his eyes I saw that horizon. Saw him gazing on it for years. His was an absolute devotion. He did not waver. He did not ask anything of me. Not before Asami. And not after her. But still he was there. And then I was too. I found my way to him.

When people talk of love they talk of kisses under fireworks, jewelry given, grand proclamations. When I talk of love I talk of silent moments in the dark, when that void is filled with memories that claw back over that horizon. He was always there.

He never told me it would be ok. That those ghosts would someday cease their visits. He was not a liar. He would say nothing, but in his embrace, there was a promise. He would always be there for me.

The train rattles around a curve, and I press up against the walls. Lined with platinum. The same material is all that embraces me now. Around my wrists and ankles. Dead to me. Silence. I cannot see, and I cannot feel. I long for the steadying influence of the earth beneath my feet, or the cold precision of steel. This is nothing.

I am nothing, and I am alone. When I close my eyes-

My eye. When I close my eye, and those ghosts visit, I am alone. His arms do not wrap around me, and there is no shoulder on which I can rest my head.

She killed him.

The tears come again. From one eye and from the scarred remnants of another. It stings, the liquid seeping from tender, pink flesh.

I hear my sobs and the rattle of the train across the tracks, taking me East.

They have told me that much. They have told me no more.

But I know, or I can guess. I’ll be killed. A trophy for the Queen. The Butcher of Ba Sing Se, butchered herself. Irony. Or poetry, actually.

There will be an audience. Tens of thousands, probably. Perhaps they will broadcast it on the radio. Millions to hear my last words, and a dying scream.

But I will say nothing. They will kill Kuvira, but she is already dead. I am her flesh. Let them maim it. I will feel nothing, and care not at all. It’s a practiced skill. They cannot hurt me. I know pain like I know the earth. I can bend it. I can hear it, and I can ignore it.

Let them have their celebration, and let me have my release.

The train goes on, but I can’t say for how long. It doesn’t matter.

The door opens, flooding the car with light, searing my open eye. I am dragged across the platinum floor, and thrown to the ground.

I inhale. Ecstasy. Reaching down to the core, I feel my senses come to life. Everything is burning now. Like my eye. Deprived, now indulged. A starving women, binging to the point of vomiting. And I do.

I am pulled to my feet. Officers in front of me. Smartly dressed. Stern. One steps forward and I know her insignia. An emissary from the queen. Her voice.

“Kuvira.”

I say nothing.

“Kuvira.”

Still.

She grabs me by the chin and tilts my head back so that I can look her in the eyes. She’s tall.

“Kuvira. Are you fucking home?”

I look around and there is nothing but dirt. Barren desolation. I am home. I nod.

She rolls her eyes. “Not what I’m talking about.” She taps her knuckles against my skull. “Are you home? As in, are you you? I heard varying reports about your mental state, and-”

“She’s dead.”

“Excuse me?”

“Kuvira.”

“She’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“And you are?”

“Nothing. No one.”

“Just flesh?”

“Meat.”

“For consumption, then?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Meat is a tool. For nourishment. We consume it. We use it. We-”

“I get it.”

“Do you?”

I open my mouth to speak, but there is nothing there. No words. No answers.

She smirks, and pats me on the head. Then, motions to the officers behind her. “Some of them don’t favor this… course of action. Some of them think we should shoot you right here, let your blood moisten the dirt.”

She licks her lips, then bites down. Her eyes narrow, like she’s looking for a response. I don’t give her one.

“We’re going to use you, Kuvira. You’re going to-”

“No.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“You’re already mistaken.”

“About who you are?”

“About who I’m not.”

“She’s not dead. You’re not dead. Just… missing a few pieces. And I’m not talking about your eye.”

She nods towards the officers, and three approach. Two unlock the cuffs and shackles with trembling hands, then leap away.

The other waits. Waits until my hands are free, then reaches out with a box. Slowly, he opens it. The sun catches the metal and the gleam is bright and familiar. Warm and sharp. My hand goes to the grip, and everything fits. Like a piece of me is restored.

The ghost of the man to whom this belonged is present, rushing forth over the horizon, but I just wave him away. I took this - and so much more - from him. He is nothing. No one.

I am more.

“Kuvira.”

“Yes?”

The woman smiles. Her lips are tight, angular, like she could cut with them.

“You’re going to work for the Kingdom now.”

I let the revolver - my revolver - rest at my side, finger dangling near the trigger. The earth steadies my body and my mind. There are fourteen officers, and the woman in front of me. All armed. All benders, maybe. But none my equal. In half a second, I could kill them. I could be free, free again. I could-

“Don’t.”

I sharpen my lips, and smirk. “I do what I want. And I don’t take orders from-”

“We have him.”

My legs are weak, as if the very earth is quaking. As if it may soon swallow me up. “Who?”

Her grin widens, into a broad, toothy smile. “The other missing piece, Kuvira. The reason you’re not dead. The reason you’re going to follow our orders.”

“You mean… he… he’s not-”

“No.”

“But I thought-”

“A lie.”

My revolver kisses her forehead and there are fourteen guns pointed right back at me. I glance at all them. Let them read my eyes. Let them see who I am, and know the full weight of my name. Let them see the butcher, the bulletbender. Let them see Kuvira. Let them see their death.

The woman laughs. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Oh, yes I do. You orchestrated this? You-”

“No. Well…” she laughs again. “What we did… it’s not important. And it’s complicated. But it’s done.” She gestures to the endless expanse. “And here we are.” She plants a finger on my chest. “And here you are. Kuvira.”

I lower my gun. Slowly. “He’s leverage.”

“That didn’t sound like a question.”

“It wasn’t. Isn’t.”

“Good. You’re catching on. Catching up. We like to see that in a soldier. But yes. We have him. Somewhere dark, solitary, and secret.”

“And if I don’t follow orders, you kill him.”

“Torture him first, probably. But yes. Although… you’d really be the person killing him, if you think about it. I mean-”

“What do you want from me?”

“Get back on the train. We’re taking you somewhere. There, you’ll meet your compatriots. Fellow soldiers, taken from the margins of society, and now working at the margins of the Kingdom. Once there… well, just be yourself. Kill the enemy.”

I take a step, then stop. “And?”

The woman arcs an eyebrow. “And?”

“So I fight for your military. I kill bandits. Exterminate vermin. If I don’t, you kill Baatar. But if - when - I do…”

The woman laughs again. “You think there’s an after, for you? No, Kuvira. You might still be alive now, but that doesn’t mean you have a future. Not like the rest of us. You’re alive, but as good as dead. And you’ll fight until you’re actually dead, in the truest sense. Maybe that takes a day. Maybe twenty years. I don’t know, and I really don’t care. But this is it now, for you. Your life. Forever. You think we would let you go? You think we would just hand him back to you? That you could walk into the sunset-”

“No.”

“Good. I’m glad we are understood. Feel free to use a passenger car, this time.”

I turn turn and walk, feeling the earth beneath my feet. It steadies me. Leads me. There are infinite paths. I know that. So I’ll fight. I’ll fight for as long as it takes me to find the path I’m looking for. The path that leads me back to him.


End file.
